Sustenance
by KrysSaiyan
Summary: Post-DotM. While dealing with the death surrounding their latest battle, Optimus Prime and Ratchet discover life amongst the ruins of a Decepticon camp, and bring the abandoned hatchlings home. Warning: contains cannibalism.


As troublesome as human politics were, they had their uses. Even if Optimus Prime did not always agree with their outcome, in _this_ situation it had been a blessing… though no one could have guessed its benefit in the beginning.

Relations with between the United States and the Autobots remained strained even in the aftermath of Chicago's destruction. The Autobots were too powerful an ally to simply cast off in the wake of such a disaster, but the government was doing its best to appease both its people and its treasury. So it was that, while the Autobots were permitted to remain within the United States as political refugees, their funding had been severely cut, their base of operations removed from any major US city, and their dead…

The humans made no distinction between Autobot and Decepticon. They had all been piled together into a heap under a tarp on the oldest vessel in the Naval fleet capable of taking their weight, and towed into International Waters.

Before they could be dumped there, with only what little ceremony Optimus and Ratchet could remember between the two of them, an urgent message had come in. Unclassified Cybertronian activity on the continent whose shore they were currently skirting. Orders were to investigate immediately.

Optimus was a _Prime_. He didn't take orders from humans. But he would investigate. He had to investigate. It was his duty to look after all Cybertronians… even if that meant executing those who had strayed.

He never professed to be merciful. Only just. Only fair.

When Optimus Prime arrived at the alleged site, he cursed his ideals, decisions, mistakes… He was not given to angst, but he came close to it, looking at the many-toothed maws of starving hatchlings chewing on the rims of their nest-barrels and the digits of their already expired nest-mates.

He wasn't ignorant of Megatron's – and the Fallen's – plans to raise an army. He had executed them both knowing of it, and he would never regret that decision.

But he came close to regret as he gently gathered the squirming, clicking, hissing hatchlings together onto a tarp and strapped them against his chest – with the tarp between them and his own metal, of course.

Later, after the long walk back to the beach, the awkward ferry to the waiting military vessel, and the even longer and more exhausting check-over by Ratchet, Optimus sat amongst three barrels of hatchlings, all of whom were chirring quietly as they rested piled on top of each other. Closer quarters than they would have been put into on Cybertron, but… there was no Cybertron anymore, no Allspark, and no hatcheries. This was the best they could do. It would have to suffice.

"Be strong, small ones," he murmured to the tiny, fragile frames in stand-by after their first good meal in who-knew-how-long. The human captain and crew were deeply unhappy with the loss of one of the interior walls, but the aircraft carrier would be fine without it. Merely expensive to replace.

They had all been relegated to top-side after that. The open ocean and the corpses of their prior caretakers did not a good hatchery make, but the young ones didn't seem to mind yet. Perhaps when they were older, stronger, more intelligent, it would disturb them more to see death, as it had once disturbed Optimus. But he adapted quickly, perhaps too quickly, to the life of war. Empty frames no longer bothered him with their hollowness.

Optimus reached over to nudge at a resting hatchling with the tip of his finger. It stirred slightly, whirring in complaint, but tried to curl itself around the much larger digit, all without truly waking. He tried to imagine telling this hatchling, much later when he was older, a warrior, or a scientist, or… whatever his final form would be – telling him that Prime had been forced to pry the arm of a dead hatchling, a nest-brother, from his mouth when he was found. Would he be horrified?

Somehow, Optimus couldn't imagine horror. Even the gentlest of the Autobots no longer flinched at brutality. These hatchlings had been raised by Megatron and the Fallen thus far… they had likely seen horror, and if they survived, would see worse. That their lives had begun in desperate hunger and brutality… it hardly mattered, as long as they were still alive.

The hatchling's optics flickered and onlined, and the little mech scraped with tiny talons at the finger joints in Prime's hand. Denied what it wanted, it started up a cry – a chattering, screeching whine that sent what few humans were loitering around to scatter and retreat away from the noise.

"I have no nourishment for you yet, little one," Optimus tried to reason with it, but soon its hungry cry would rouse the others. It was a long trip back to the United States, and then additional time to reach their base of operations. Even then, there was little hope of persuading the government to let them have more materials with which to feed the hungry brood. It had been trouble enough to persuade them into permitting the hatchlings' presence at all.

Not for the first time, Optimus considered that they were relying too much on the mercy of others for their survival. For a race once so prideful and independent, it was shameful. But they would do what it took to survive. They had to.

There was a clawed hand sticking out from under the tarps thrown over their dead. It was impossible to identify who it once belonged to… but now, it was no one's.

The hatchling's cries grew sharper, more demanding. Prime's programming reacted before his processor did, snapping a long claw off the dead hand and giving it to the hatchling, whose cries instantly silenced as the buzzing, grinding sound of small, sharp teeth working at metal filled the silence instead.

When it was finished eating, another woke. Then another. Soon Optimus forgot himself amongst feeding them, dropping bits of metal he had crushed himself over their demanding heads, letting them catch it in their mouths and buzz contentedly. All the while, he kept murmuring and rumbling his engine, letting them associate the sound and its vibration with the comfort of food.

"Eat all you like, little ones," he told them gently while lowering a tendril of wire down to them and watching as they devoured it. "Grow stronger. These were the best of our race. They'll take care of you. There you go. All of it now, don't waste any."

They didn't. Every scrap he gave them, they ate whole. These were not finicky or messy hatchlings. Any with those inclinations might must died much earlier, Optimus mused.

When the feeding frenzy was over, Optimus found himself scooping over-eager hatchlings who had fallen out of their makeshift nests back into them, as careful of their delicate frames as he had been with the humans' softer ones. The last one to be placed back amongst its nest-mates chirped quietly and looked up at Prime with bright optics, squirming and writhing in the large hands, testing motor control and strength. Optimus could do little but stare back at it, wondering what would become of this tiny life.

When it continued chirping, he drew one finger down the length of it in a stroke, and it shuddered and whirred happily. _'How simple,'_ he thought, repeating the gesture. _'If only we were all so easily pleased.'_

Once the hatchling was again nestled amongst its brothers, Optimus resumed his vigil, staring out at the night sky and the black ocean. It was much like space travel. Warmer. More humid. But the visual, at least, were similar. It was almost comforting, in a way.

The moon above was half in Earth's shadow, but its reflected light was still enough to see by, even by human standards. The glint of Cybertronian metal caught Prime's attention and brought it back to the pile of corpses they had originally come here to dispose of.

It was a pile of parts now, reduced to a mostly homogenous mixture of pieces – reduced once by Optimus Prime on the battlefield, and then reduced further by his hands, and in the presence of ravenous hatchlings . If tasked to it, no one could have told where one mech's shell began and ended. Struck by a morbid fancy, Optimus knelt in front of it.

"Till all are one."

Looking back at the barrels full of their future – sated, chirring hatchlings who would soon be ready for their next meal – Optimus made up his mind.

Perhaps it was time for the Autobots to take their future into their own hands.


End file.
